"Last year, in the ironically named Citizens United case, the U.S. Supreme Court followed the logic of a line of cases declaring corporations to be “persons” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment and found them equal to human beings in the matter of spending money to influence politics. In August of this year, the smart money’s Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, kicked it up a notch by declaring in answer to a hostile taxation question at the Iowa State Fair, “Corporations are people, my friend.”

I’m a mere retired judge, but my own view is that corporations are legal technology, ink on paper, and they have no rights not conferred on them by the legislature. I would go further and urge tribal governments to enact business codes that limit corporate activities and require a tribal charter to do business on tribal land. But that’s just me.

In keeping with my personal tradition of finding odd connections in the news, I see that the indigenous President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, is about to promulgate la Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra. In English, “the law of the rights of Mother Earth.”"

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: If Corporations Are Persons (Indian Country Today 12/10)

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